Category Archives: CMPF

Day 30: Quiz and turning our motion maps

We’re about 10 days out from taking the final, and we’re just now taking the first quiz for velocity. During the next-x discussion, a lot of the students LOOKED like they were paying attention. There were lots of copying down whatever was being written down on the board. However, today, after looking at the quizzesContinue reading “Day 30: Quiz and turning our motion maps”

Days 7 & 8: System Schema and State Diagrams

Day 7: Flipbooks Today, we finally go the chance to introduce the Physicists of 406. I normally like to do this on Day 2 or Day 3, with Day 1 being a 45-minute period. I had no idea that missing that normal Day 1 would throw me off my timing so bad. Regardless, students filledContinue reading “Days 7 & 8: System Schema and State Diagrams”

Days 5-6 Observation Stations continues

I really should have lumped Days 4-6 together since it covers Observation Stations, but it looks like I was feeling particularly ambitious about posting each day. Day 5: Progress Check + Presentations Since it was our first year last year rolling out the Computational Modeling- Physics First #cmpfb curriculum, it was not as intuitive forContinue reading “Days 5-6 Observation Stations continues”

Day 5: Observation Stations Part 1 #cmpfb

Started the class with having students reflect on their Pyret homework assignment. They came up with some great reflections about what they noticed about Pyret. There are still a lot of students calling the feedback messages errors, so that just means I’ll have to be way more intentional about calling them FEEDBACK instead of errors.Continue reading “Day 5: Observation Stations Part 1 #cmpfb”

Amelia Bedelia and Pyret #cmpfb

Physics Day 3 Today, I planned to do a notebook setup, go over the syllabus, finish Vector Force, and do a team challenge activity with Solo cups. What actually happened: barely got through notebook setup, rushed through syllabus, did not touch Vector Force, Block 3 did the team challenge with the cups…and had them startContinue reading “Amelia Bedelia and Pyret #cmpfb”

First 2 Days of Physics #cmpfb

Alleluia! We are back in person. It’s not exactly back to pre-pandemic times. We are masked indoors (so yes, that means the classroom) and the windows have to be open. Right now, the Bay Area weather is lovely so I’m happy to have the windows wide open and to be outside to enjoy lunch. I’mContinue reading “First 2 Days of Physics #cmpfb”

#cmpfb Day 11: Conditionals and Conventions

Birds in Space– We started our day off with discussing the forces acting on a bird sitting on a perch. Then someone asked if the bird was on Earth, which lead to a nice comment about a bird not wearing a helmet so that it could breathe. Someone else sent a link to a shutterstockContinue reading “#cmpfb Day 11: Conditionals and Conventions”

Week 2: Uniform Acceleration

After writing Brain Mush, I felt like I was on fire and ready to write. Not sure what happened Tuesday through Friday, but it did feel like a whirlwind. I might say that the pace was constantly accelerating, and when the weekend hit, I needed to gather myself. I ended up writing an initial planContinue reading “Week 2: Uniform Acceleration”

Day 4: Energy Buckets and Buggy Lab

I’m not used to coming into my next session with questions. I like to feel confident that I understood completely what happened the day before, but I need to sit with that (and remember that I will have students feeling this way). We do start our day off with a Jamboard of creating a systemContinue reading “Day 4: Energy Buckets and Buggy Lab”